The Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs yesterday announced that China would revoke the media credentials of all American journalists at three major US media organizations in response to new US restrictions on Chinese state-controlled media.
US citizens working for the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal and the Washington Post with credentials expiring before the end of this year must surrender their press cards within 10 days, the ministry said.
It is the latest in a series of tit-for-tat actions by the two governments as US Donald Trump’s administration takes a more confrontational stance than his predecessors in dealing with China. The two countries remain enmeshed in a trade dispute and have traded angry words over the COVID-19 pandemic.
Photo: AFP
The move comes after the Trump administration designated five Chinese media outlets as foreign missions and restricted the number of Chinese who could work for them in a de facto expulsion of about one-third of their Chinese staff.
Beijing described its steps as “necessary and reciprocal countermeasures that China is compelled to take in response to the unreasonable oppression the Chinese media organizations experience in the US.”
The American journalists will likely have to leave China, because their visas are tied to their press credentials. They would not be allowed to work in China, Hong Kong or Macau, a ministry statement said.
US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo disputed the comparison between the US and Chinese actions.
“The individuals that we identified a few weeks back were not media that were acting here freely,” he said. “They were part of Chinese propaganda outlets. We’ve identified these as foreign missions under American law.”
Editors of all three organizations condemned the action.
“The Chinese government’s decision is particularly regrettable because it comes in the midst of an unprecedented global crisis, when clear and reliable information about the international response to COVID-19 is essential,” Washington Post executive editor Marty Baron said. “Severely limiting the flow of that information, which China now seeks to do, only aggravates the situation.”
In its announcement yesterday, China said that five US media outlets — the three newspapers, Voice of America and Time magazine — would be required to declare information in writing about their staff, finances, operations and real estate in China.
China would take reciprocal measures against American journalists generally on visas, administrative review and reporting, it said, without further detail.
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